Tsie Tsie (Thank you in Mandarin)

I am currently returning from China. This text serves to expose those conclusions of a person who, after nine days of travel, thinks he has understood an entire people and its culture. It is as if each citizen were an ambassador of China and, if he spits, it is because everyone spits. Speaking of spitting, we can start there. A lot is spat on the street in those parts. What is interesting to mention, since we are analyzing these people in detail, is that the snot of the Chinese does not come from the throat, but from a place much lower. Don’t ask me to tell you where from because everything I know about the human body I learned through “Once upon a time the human body” and it’s been thirty years. But back to the snot, the noise it makes when it climbs denounces a longer journey and a place of origin with more reverberation. And while we’re talking about noises, I’ll dismiss the fact that burping is also something natural and at any moment someone can decide to do it to our faces, as happened to me in a market in Macau.

Another hasty and unfounded conclusion is that China is a very safe country and the people are very correct. No one ever charged us a tourist price for anything and we were always alone, me and my manager, at any time of the day or night, without ever feeling afraid. It’s also a great country to travel with kids, not that I took them, but I got that desire.

Communication is perhaps the biggest challenge and we can’t even get away with gestures. I found myself saying “muuuuu no, muuuu no” to say that I didn’t want cow’s milk and, even so, it came with cow’s milk. On the first day, we ordered some sautéed cabbages and the lady brought to the table two types of cabbage for us to choose from. After half an hour, when we had eaten all the other dishes, the cabbages still didn’t arrive. We asked the lady, who only replied: “No”. My friend, who has been living in China for a good few years, told us that it was best not to insist. As the cucu said: “I won’t eat cabbages.”

Still on the subject of communication, in Beijing we went to the Great Wall of China and in the end we bought a ticket that we thought was to get down on the chairs in the style of ski resort chairs. It was only when we reached the end of the line that we realized that our tickets were to slide down the mountain.

Another very interesting thing in China is the concept of queue. Well, the queue exists, but no one respects it. At first I was just indignant, after a week, if someone passed me, I passed in front again and we stayed in this dance until we reached the counter. No one is offended. It is a kind of traditional Chinese dance.

I have also learned, in this long week, that Chinese names always have a meaning. I met a girl named “Neve”, a “Pereira” and a “Guerreiro”. It is interesting, however, that many Chinese first introduce themselves with their Western name, chosen by them perhaps for the sound or for the ease of phonetics, which is devoid of meaning.

On this trip to Macau, I also had the opportunity to visit some schools to present my children’s book, now translated into Chinese. I realized, from what I saw and from conversations I had, that the Chinese education system is very strict and that parents invest everything in their children’s future, often sacrificing the hours of play. Therefore, it makes sense for adults to show a late childhood, using Hello Kitty or Pikachu backpacks at the age of forty.

As for the food, it’s hard to be a vegetarian in a country where the menus only have photos and no one speaks English, but I ate very good things. Am I completely sure I haven’t spent a whole week eating chicken and fish stocks? No.

Another interesting fact is that we are never given napkins in restaurants, especially since soup is a very popular dish. The truth is that at first I drooled a lot, but I improved the technique throughout the week and, in the end, I didn’t even need cleaning assistants anymore. I believe it was this lack of cleanliness that on the last day made me discover in the pocket of a coat, a cloth napkin from the embassy, without having any idea how it ended up there. A napkin as a souvenir of a country without napkins.

In China it always smells a lot of something, and the two most characteristic smells are incense and food that, every two meters, oscillates between sweet and salty. We see people eating at all hours. According to what we were told, the Chinese have lunch three times a day and dinner twice. It’s also pretty impressive how fast they do it.

Before this trip, my experience with Chinese cuisine was non-existent. On the last day we went to a restaurant where the specialty was “Peking Duck”. I had never seen anyone eat that dish and so I improvised. I took the small crepe, put some vegetables inside, the sauce on top and closed it (I remember that I am a vegetarian and, for that reason, the duck was left out). When I bite the crepe it seemed very stiff, but we were with other people at the table and I was ashamed to share my inexperience. I tried harder. Nothing. My teeth didn’t tear the crepe. It was then that I wondered if what I was cracking was not paper. I went to examine the basket and confirmed that the crepes are always between two sheets of paper. I surreptitiously pushed the contents of the paper into the real crepe and ate it in one sitting, swallowing the shame in half.

Nowadays it is very difficult to travel for real. What I mean is that all the big cities are very similar, with their brunch cafes and their avotoasts. The cultural contrast is almost imperceptible and it is in this contrast that the true learning of a trip lies. In China I really felt like I was traveling. I have a friend whom I call the “Queen of Quotes” who told me that you only learn from a trip not while you are traveling, but later, when you reflect on that same trip. That’s why I wrote this text, to reflect, to learn and, although it’s been a short time, to relive.